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Ask HN: How are so many fake ads allowed on YouTube?
One third of all commercials I see on youtube are outright fake. Either it's a fake business story, fake description of "inventions" or outright deep fakes of famous people dubbed to telling lies. I can't figure out why google / youtube are taking this so lightly, or what it is that is missing from their approval procedure (don't they have any?).
The production quality is good enough to cheat eg. my parents, but it doesn't take me 2 seconds to spot it, so I'm amazed it can go on.
Anyone with background insights into the approval / reporting procedure or knowledge of if Google just doesn't care?
I also assume there must be a healthy business for someone, producing these commercials for companies so eager for attention - could they maybe be called out?
For instance, the one triggering me to make this post was of Elon Musk, unveiling some trading platform leading to this site[1], where the video in the ad can also be seen. I have no idea how to link to the youtube ads, but if I did I would have collected a loonng list of fakes by now.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-tucker-carlson-elon-musk/fact-check-tucker-carlson-segment-on-elon-musk-quantum-ai-is-fake-idUSL1N3A90N2
- skilled 3y agoHere is another I have seen, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK0zRsCcsBs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK0zRsCcsBs Elon Musk deepfake talking about some AI garbage, but the interesting thing about this video is that: - There isn't a product being promoted per se. - The channel running this ad doesn't have any links on its channel. - The company practically doesn't exist that is running the ad. And I have seen a few others while going through Shorts, so it's definitely something that is either hard for them to monitor, or they haven't yet bothered to look into it in-depth.
- sixothree 3y agoShorts is a cesspool of unmoderated content. The amount of content that violates YouTube rules is astounding. I got fed animal cruelty a number of times in the early days of shorts. Maybe it thought I was interested from the one I must have lingered on to report it.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- danpalmer 3y agoI'm a recent but heavy user of Shorts and have never noticed this since I started. I've also noticed a reduction in the amount of alt-right dog-whistle type content that I was getting. It's possible improvements are being made.
- matsemann 3y agoYeah, I was also surprised when I scrolled Shorts a while back on how far off it was from my normal viewing habits. Either alt-right podcasts with dumb fake outrage stuff, or for some reason constant videos of dancing. Neither which is close to my viewing habit on YT which is 99% British panel shows. Gotten a bit better, though. Might also be other types of content having started to use that part of the platform, so they actually have something relevant to serve me. At least I can scroll YT Shorts on public transit. No matter how many times I'm saying "not interested on" half-naked girls, and it not being relevant to anything I'm following on Insta, I get it all the time..
- uberman 3y agoI get served shorts that are essentially soft core porn on a regular basis. Featuring yoga poses, back lit crotch shots, and women wearing electrical tape on the cat walk. I cant seem to make them stop no matter what I do. Probably because I coach a womans sport and watch a lot of that sport on youtube. "Oh you watch womens sports, you must want to see these videos of models wearing nothing but tape!"
- uberman 3y agoWhen I was young, I thought "freedom of speech" meant that the government should not stop you from saying things that were true or that you believed to be true that they did not like. The kind of free speech we talk about when we say the Iran or China lacks free speech. Recently, I have grown to learn that free speech might also include flat out lies that further your own addenda and be about companies not just governments. All that is to say, that YouTube ads for bogus Amazon strategies and miracle weightloss and hearing plans and now deep fake sponsorships are here because giant companies no longer vet anything and if they did, certain segments of our society will complain that they are being censored.
- cherrycherry98 3y agoIt's not freedom of speech if someone is claiming to be someone they aren't (false representation) or claiming benefits that don't exist (false advertising) for financial gain. This is fraud and is illegal. There's not much of a freedom of speech argument around it and even pro speech people wouldn't come to the defense of someone lying about their product.
- hotpotamus 3y agoI've never really accepted the whole "fraud isn't free speech" thing. Fundamentally free speech would allow you to threaten or lie to anyone about anything, but that's why there are limits to freedoms.
- JshWright 3y ago> Elon Musk deepfake talking about some AI garbage Are you sure that's a fake? That seems pretty on brand...
- reportgunner 3y agoGreed.
- csomar 3y agoThere is no incentive to remove them.
- shdon 3y agoThe worst part is that reporting these as a scam just results in Google replying with the boilerplate "we did not find that this ad violates our terms of service" almost invariably. As it's Google, I am basically just assuming this is because of greed and Google are profiting off the ads so they have no incentive to take them down.
- mywacaday 3y agoI've been flagging some of these scams lately and one did get banned but others have not, they were all some version of the BBC or a US talk show host interviewing Elon Musk stating that he is investing in something. The dubbing is terrible, i don't understand how they say the they are valid ads.
- worthless-trash 3y agoIt may be geo specific, the dodgiest advertisements ive seen is some guy trying to sell course on undestanding bitcoin.
- Zealotux 3y agoI keep getting shown fake Mr. Beast "videos" which are actually ads copying his style 100% and promising $1000 by just clicking on it, clear scams seem to be acceptable for YouTube, anything that pays good money is welcomed, I guess.
- kro 3y agoiirc often also with lots of fake comments claiming it's legit
- Balgair 3y agoAside: Mr. Beast's shtick is both genius and so dumb to me. Like, the entire premise of his videos is money-money-money. I mean, of course he's going to get some views with that formula. And yeah, I know he really does have a good understanding of how YT's audience works and how to target it. He's talked about his grinding rise to fame for years now. But still, he didn't really attack the human mind, he just is playing off of our base impulses. He's the Publisher's Clearing House commercials but for YT. It's not adding anything to the world except base entertainment (a worthy thing in the right circumstances, of course). I don't know, he found his edge (money! YT!) and has dogged it relentlessly. And that's great for him. But, I dunno, I feel like his talents are larger than that. That he can make some really good stuff that will last longer than all of us.
- globular-toast 3y agoThese often outright disturbing ads are the real reason I have to block ads. Even if I were somehow convinced that using a service while blocking ads is wrong, I simply will not take the risk of seeing another disturbing weird fake ad.
- yomlica8 3y agoOn slashdot's mobile website half the ads are pictures of infected toes or something. I don't even know what they're trying to sell.
- kro 3y agoI've also wondered that, seeing MrBeast giveaway ads to fakedomains every other day. Reporting all those gets exhausting soon.
- dr-detroit 3y ago[dead]
- brap 3y agoOn FB I’m getting ads for drugs. It used to be subtle, now it’s just “we have the purest cocaine” with photos and everything. It seems like filtering ads in general is a difficult problem.
- JshWright 3y agoI think it's less a case of it being difficult and more a case of there being little to no incentive (in the short term, anyway) to do a good job of it. Fake/illegal ads pay the same as real ads
- moolcool 3y ago> I think it's less a case of it being difficult Pff, you can moderate content of people who are paying you money. Surely each of these is getting reported like crazy as well.
- JshWright 3y agoI’m sure they are, and I suspect any specific instance gets removed eventually, but every extra hour that takes is extra impressions the advertiser is paying for.
- bryanrasmussen 3y agoIt is difficult to get Google to fix something when their income depends on it remaining broken.
- pjc50 3y agoAs far as I can tell, fraudulent ads are legal in the US, but this is not true of all jurisdictions; UK viewers can report fraudulent ads to the Advertising Standards Agency. https://www.asa.org.uk/news/like-comment-and-comply-youtube-and-the-cap-code.html https://www.asa.org.uk/news/like-comment-and-comply-youtube-... (not that this does very much, since the outcome is very rarely actual fines, just a requirement to stop running the ad)
- thfuran 3y agoFalse advertising is not legal in the US, but there's a lot of deception that is allowed under the guise of puffery and such.
- AugustoCAS 3y agoGoogle makes money, so they are happy to look away. The scams (e.g. Mr Beast fake video) are identical so it would be trivial to automatically kick them from the platform. The crypto bro's ads are also pretty much identical. The crypto bro ads are hilarious and it looks like they all use the same platform. I wonder if all of them are part of a ponzi scheme in which someone sells a course to sell crypto courses. Something I do, which is a bit silly, is to click the ad just to burn money from the scammers.
- bejd 3y agoYou might be interested in AdNauseum [0] > Built atop uBlock Origin, AdNauseam quietly clicks on every blocked ad, registering a visit on ad networks' databases. [0]: https://adnauseam.io/ https://adnauseam.io/
- AugustoCAS 3y agoThanks for the tip! For a while I've been thinking of setting a VM that navigates the interwebs clicking on random links to generate tracking noise. I need to find out how to do that :D.
- readingnews 3y agoI love the idea after reading the site, this line, however, scares me about the addon: Access your data for all websites
- Nextgrid 3y agoIt needs access to all websites' data as it needs to see & interact with the tabs to be able to detect & simulate clicks on those ads.
- dax_ 3y agouBlock Origin has the same requirement. Basically, to block ads on any website, it needs access to the data on any website. The wording of the permission is a bit weird maybe.
- Waterluvian 3y agoOmg. Yesterday I watched an ad that explained in an AI voice how tinnitus causes memory loss and within three years I’ll be unable to form any new memories. It was absolutely ridiculous, low effort, overseas fraud. Google has become a toilet of the Internet. The ad quality and quantity have degraded severely this year. I still think that based on how much they’re selling out any remaining trust or brand quality, they must be secretly struggling in a very bad way.
- circuit10 3y agoI saw the exact same ad
- PaulHoule 3y agoHow about that guy who says you can’t lose weight by cutting carbs? He is so over-exposed that the other scam ads talk about him! Or the ads I see all the internet that talk about what form of exercise or intermittent fasting is good depending on the last digit of your age or the ratio of your thumb length to your p4s length which you know is not really about exercise or intermittent fasting or your age or your thumb or your p4s, but really they will send you to some site that plays a video that drones on for an hour and a half and finally pushes some lame-ass supplement. They must have a terrible conversion rate but they do OK because you can never unsubscribe once you get signed up unless you are really well connected and can call your congressman who can call the president who can call the joint chiefs of staff who can sic the navy SEALs on their ass.
- jcalabro 3y agoI just got this one as the first ad I saw now while browsing in an incognito tab. I really had no idea how far the quality has fallen, dang.
- hn92726819 3y agoFYI to anyone reading this that gets ads in incognito, but not regular browser: you can go to manage plugin for uBlock Origin (the chrome page, not the unlock Origin settings page), and check the box to allow it to run in incognito.
- a_random_canuck 3y agoI don’t understand why these ads aren’t considered criminal fraud, why Google and its directors aren’t held criminally responsible for said fraud, and why all the income derived from such fraud is considered proceeds of crime and seized. Oh, wait, I do understand. It’s because criminal law is only really meant for the little people who sold some marijuana and not the corporations facilitating massive worldwide fraud. If I help personally defraud one person? Straight to jail. But Google helps defraud millions of people? Here please take some more taxpayer cash.
- Waterluvian 3y agoWhile I agree that the force of the justice system heavily targets the non-rich, I did see a former U.S. president on trial for fraud yesterday.
- connicpu 3y agoThe rich are only held accountable when they screw over other rich people/other larger entities (like banks). Occasionally when a company engages in exceptionally egregious conduct against average people they can get a larger slap on the wrist via a class action suit, but it seems like those are becoming more rare, especially since anti-class action clauses are standard practice in contracts.
- moolcool 3y agoI'd consider that an exception that proves the rule
- ben_w 3y agoYou shouldn't consider it the exception. The rich are usually not so narcissistic they will only let sycophants work for them, so they dot their i's and cross their t's correctly. There's a lot of room for being sneaky in ways most of us disapprove of before it crosses into criminal. However, we've also had Bernie Madoff and… wow, this is a long list of American politicians convicted of fraud: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_politicians_convicted_of_fraud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_politicians_... I've only noticed four overlap on the subcategory of mail and wire fraud, too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Politicians_convicted_of_mail_and_wire_fraud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Politicians_convicted... And at the time of writing, this list is disjoint also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Politicians_convicted_of_honest_services_fraud https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Politicians_convicted... (Though looking at the details, that isn't what I would've expected from the description "American politicians convicted of" as a Canadian is included; technically yes, and I won't speak either way as to if I think you should count that).
- ocdbg 3y agoA very large portion of ads on Indian YouTube is some charlatan inviting to join masterclass/workshop/seminar where they try to brainwash you into buying a "course that will change you life". Most of these fake gurus have been exposed but YouTube keeps running their ad.
- proactivesvcs 3y agoHow were so many malware adverts allowed on Google's ad networks in the past? For the same reason: they just don't care.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- astockwell 3y agoIf anyone has NOT noticed these ads running constantly on YouTube, I’d encourage you to spend 10 minutes on the site in an incognito window. I would have thought this thread was overblown had I not inadvertently done that a few weeks ago. But it was truly surprising just how awful the “untailored” ads were.
- mdip 3y agoI'm glad I'm not the only person who thought "I forgot YouTube has ads!" I have a feeling a lot of Hacker News readership has -- at least -- ad-blocking installed on their computers that hides the problem from them. Unlike the rest of my family, I generally don't watch YouTube, but when I do, it's almost always from something other than a smart TV[0] and I rarely watch videos on my phone[1] (though on my device, I think I'm ad-free there, too). In a way, it's a lot more of the same. Internet advertising has been a cesspool ... I'm old enough to remember scantily clad women holding X10 devices[2] (usually cameras) in pop-under ads, along with "cyber cash", online casinos and the like. I used to selectively unblock sites that I didn't want to starve of advertising revenue but that stopped when ads became a popular way to deliver malware. Once that became a thing, the gauntlet went down -- I stopped feeling even the slightest bit of guilt about filtering. I can't say it's (at all) surprising. The scammers have a system where they can produce a large volume of trash at a low cost and make a profit on a few (often naive/elderly/other) poor souls. There's the usual "policing content is orders of magnitude harder than producing it", "lack of sufficient penalty on those producing the ads" combined with lack of sufficient pressure/penalty on those displaying the ads to police them well enough[3]. It's so bad now that you could do exactly what you said -- Google could, literally, run a script to capture the ads from 10 minutes of incognito play, ban them all and would catch, maybe one?, that isn't a law/terms of service violation. Some of these ads make the offers appearing in my spam folder look about as trustworthy. Add into that "I'm the problem, too" in that rather than "making a lot of noise about this issue", I simply implement ever-more complex ways of eliminating advertising from my life wherever it exists. Due to filtering, I rarely see advertisements that aren't of the "product placement" or physically unavoidable variety (billboards/physical advertising in public spaces, though I'm sure mixed reality will let me wipe those out one day, too[4]). My kids, however, watch YouTube and similar services far more than they watch traditional streaming/TV and they do so on devices that I haven't taken the time to censor. Much worse, however, is the advertisements included in "the dumb game of the week" installed to one of their devices. It got so bad that I put a blanket family rule of "do not install anything on your device without asking me, first." As I have teenagers, now, about the only way I've been able to enforce that rule is "your device gets malware, it gets a factory reset and I provide no help getting the thing restored." About twice a year they get that hard reminder. It doesn't help much. [0] Hell, for that matter, I don't watch TikTok or other social media videos at all [1] A story worthy of another post but modern smart phones seem to do something to the audio that when anything is played out of the speaker that isn't "a ring-tone", it has an aspect to it that sounds like "fingernails on a chalkboard." It bothers me so much that if I'm dealing with a Migraine headache the sound coming out of the speaker results in my symptoms amplifying about as badly as if I looked directly at a bright light source -- it's caused me to spontaneously run to the bathroom to vomit before. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X10_Wireless_Technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X10_Wireless_Technology [3] Which, were the penalties big enough would also -- due to "policing content is orders of magnitude harder ..." -- would make it impossible for anyone other than the FAANGs of the world to police. [4] The idea of walking around with goggles on to avoid advertising is pretty silly ... and the cost of physical advertising is prohibitive enough, today, to make it less attractive to scammers ... however, more than half of the billboards down the interstate are for pot dispensaries extolling the virtues of "the high life", casinos touting the "cool car you can win" and liquor brands "enjoyed by the successful/cool people of the world".
- kkarpkkarp 3y agomy story: when my kids were in age around 5 yo, obviously they were watching YT cartoons, but this will not be story about ElsaGate, this knows everyone. Some algorithm decided it is good to show during cartoons vasectomy ad. This is weird enough, but somehow I can understand this failed reasoning (kids -> tired parents -> no more kids -> vasectomy). But this ad consisted only from one slide presenting intersection of penis and nothing more. For long seconds my kids were staring at it before I reacted and turned it off. I also reported this to my country's authorities and I got some answer they gave Google some fine for this.
- pluc 3y agoProtip: avoid ads on the internet in any way you can.
- ChatGTP 3y agoNot advertisements per se, but I scrolled through my feed the other night and honestly, every single video suggested just seemed to be clickbait / spam / conspiracy nonsense. I'm usually addicted to YouTube, but I had zero interest in viewing any of it. Not the first time I've felt like this in the last 12 months either. Edit: Come to think of it, maybe the content is some type of concealed advertising ?
- drcongo 3y agoGoogle will do absolutely anything for money.
- elashri 3y agoDaily reminder that ublock origin is the best software being currently developed. Adding to this sponsorshipblock extension and the efforts by its community, the web is a place that can be digested again.
- nottorp 3y agoThe same way fake results are allowed on Google search. I find youtube unusable with ads on so I only open it on a desktop with uBlock Origin.
- glimshe 3y agoI banned YouTube for my teenager due to the amount of fraud and unsafe, fake content. It anything even remotely close was appearing on cable, the FCC would be all over it.
- dr-detroit 3y ago[dead]
- orwin 3y agoI think the standard for fraudulent ad in the US is really high, and understandably so. It's like AR-15, its a very indulging reading of the constitution, that the government shall not impede speech.
- hellweaver666 3y agoThe ones that get me are mobile games. They show some cool concept but when you install the game it's just a cookie-cutter pay-to-win RPG type thing.
- Apreche 3y agoThe real question to be asking is, why don’t you see more ads for big time things? The most effective advertising is for cars, beverages, etc. Are you seeing those ads on YouTube? The ads you see tell you a lot about the effectiveness of the ads. Or at least they tell you about how effective ad-buyers perceive the ads to be. If ad buyers thought that YouTube ads actually worked, you would see big time companies buying YouTube ads. You would also see fewer ads selling at higher prices. The fact that YouTube ads are so garbage is an indicator that their perceived effectiveness is terrible. Therefore the ads have to be sold for low prices. And low priced ads bring in all sorts of low budget scams who couldn’t afford to buy better placements. Also, a lot of these ads, despite being obvious scams, are not actually illegal in a lot of places. If the law doesn’t force a company like Google to turn away dollars, they aren’t going to turn them away. Also, I think this difference in ads at least partially explains some of the different attitudes of younger generations. For example, young people do not seem to be as in love with cars as older generations. The anti-car pro-environment movement is getting strong. You have to think that young people watching YouTube instead of broadcast TV, and not being inundated with car ads, has something to do with that. There’s a lot more going on here beneath the surface.
- Nextgrid 3y agoTo be fair I think you are reading too much into it. If you fall into the right targeting criteria you will see ads for cars and such. But you are right that there's also a lot of absolute garbage out there that would never fly on any reputable TV channel/print magazine. > young people do not seem to be as in love with cars I think lower-end cars approaching $20k might also have something to do with it.
- mdip 3y agoYou make several good points here ... if I'm a Coke, a Ford/GM or a candidate for public office, competing for eyeballs with crypto-/weight-loss-/online casino scams is probably not something I want to be associated with. I know I've seen some legitimate brands (in the past, anyway) on YouTube when I stroll into my family room and see my son watching some guy narrate himself playing video games. Considering, first, that most of the content he's watching isn't great to begin with -- and as a brand I may not want my product being run along side any of that, either -- the other ads I'd be sharing time with make me surprised there's any non-vice/non-scam brands willing to market via those channels.
- astura 3y agoHow can I get these Elon Musk deepfake ads? I'd much rather watch them then the (real) St. Jude's ads.
- AbrahamParangi 3y agoScams on marketplaces (ads or Amazon or the App Store) parasitize the buyers/viewers and legitimate sellers/advertisers but are symbiotic with the marketplace itself. This creates strong incentives for some PM with the goal of “make number go up” to torpedo any “clean up the marketplace” efforts if they make the number go down- and in the short term all such efforts will make the number go down because these scams are basically exchanging platform trust for revenue today.
- NeoTar 3y agoIs this just a US-American (or non-European) thing? I don't think I've ever seen obviously fraudulent video advertisements in the UK or Germany. Video ads are generally video games, supermarkets or generic products (razors, personal hygiene, etc.) Then again UK advertisements are a lot more heavily regulated than the USA, by the Advertising Standards Agency - https://www.asa.org.uk https://www.asa.org.uk - they are actively targeting ads such as "clearly false or outlandish claims for products, for example that a device can save 90% on energy bills, or offering miracle cures". I'm not sure of the situation in Germany, but I imagine something similar must exist. However, I still see a lot of text-advertisements with a Mr Beast-style cartoon figure supposedly giving me $1000 for clicking a link, and a lot of distasteful-but-not-neccessarily-fraudulent ads such as dodgy online-dating.
- Nextgrid 3y agoI've definitely seen gift card scam ads in the UK on YouTube. > Then again UK advertisements are a lot more heavily regulated than the USA This only applies to TV or broadcast mediums that are actually observable by a third-party. There is no way for the ASA or similar regulator to actually oversee online advertising due to their sheer volume and due to targeting - unless your current browser session matches whatever targeting criteria set on the ad you wouldn't even know it's in there.
- NeoTar 3y ago> This only applies to TV or broadcast mediums that are actually observable by a third-party. I think you are mistaken here. The ASA covers (according to their website) - Ads on the internet, smartphones and tablets - Ad claims on companies’ own websites - Commercial e-mail and text messages As an example, here is a ruling against a Facebook advertisement: https://www.asa.org.uk/rulings/aspro-atlantic-medikal-turizm-ticaret-limited-irketi.html https://www.asa.org.uk/rulings/aspro-atlantic-medikal-turizm...
- Nextgrid 3y agoI agree that in theory it covers online ads, my argument is that in practice they have zero visibility on what's happening on there, and the people who are the most at-risk for malicious ads are also the least likely to recognize & report them. Also, looking at your ruling, it doesn't look like any long-term solution has been implemented? Meta got away with it (as usual), the advertiser inherently got away with it by virtue of being based out of reach of UK law enforcement. The whole thing appears to be a waste of time and taxpayer money?
- cynicalsecurity 3y agoInstagram is another story. They seem to be filtering ads properly, but the video section is full of far right agenda and foreign subversion propaganda. I'm reporting those videos and channels as scam all the time, but new keep popping up again and again after every few videos.
- meiraleal 3y agoQuick remind that Firefox on Android allow you to install extensions and then adblocks. You can use it as a replacement for the Youtube app and you can even leave the browser and continue listening if it is music.
- porsager 3y agoI'm curious why a post like this is pulled from the front page and the Ask HN page? Any insight @dang ?
- w1nst0nsm1th 3y agoIt's not only YT. Now, there is ads for sponsorized links on Le Monde website, which is credited to being a newspaper of record.
- harishpillay 3y agoMy solution to this is to have https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/enhancer-for-youtube/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/enhancer-for-... installed in my browser. It is also available for Chromium. It works perfectly and I have not been interrupted with ads at all. Highly recommended. While I understand the need to support content creators, the way the ads work is highly disruptive of the flow of the contents of the video. I have no issue if the ads are at the start of the video (or even the end), but the way it has been showing up on browsers that don't have this plugin, is downright annoying.